Maybe this series has completely turned. If the Raps can win game 5 as well, then I'll be super interested.
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Maybe this series has completely turned. If the Raps can win game 5 as well, then I'll be super interested.
Game 4 not over yet, this is intense. Emotions are flaring on the court tn. Casey just went ballistic on that lowry travel. IMO was good defense by delly.
They stuck lowry on lebron in the post for the last 2 minutes of the game and Lebron couldn't do a thing. WHAT THE FUCK
I just realised how offended I get when people say Kyrie is better then lowry.
I know you are high on the win right now, but they are pretty close. So I don't think it's correct to be offended by anyone saying either player is better, it's splitting hairs. Lowry did just have the best season of his career but he is 30. Overall you want Kyrie.
Ill take 2014 lowry over every variation of irving we've seen and 2016 lowry over anything irving will ever be.
In a dynasty, irving is probably what you want, but for right now lowry is the better player. Announcers from espn tn were saying Lebron and Irving are the best players in this series, but lowry is IMO pretty clearly a better player then irving, and it's not really that close for me.
MVP through 4 games goes to Dwayne Casey....Letting the Cavs just chuck up 3's and miss is what's brought them back into this series. Kudos to him for making the adjustment after 2 games. Cavs were shooting the lights out these playoffs and came back to earth this series.
I wonder if he planned it this way. lets completely throw game 1 and 2 but take away the 3 ball and then see if they can adjust to us when we get dirty on the paint. If Love has a decent game from 3 the raps probably would be down 3-1 (kicked there asses in game 3 :p)
Eh. I disagree. The only reason the raptors are in this series is monster performances by Byombo, Lowry, and DeRozan. I mean... last night they had an 18 point lead in the 3rd and blew it. Those 3 are playing the best ball of their lives and they still almost lose the game due to back cuts and open 3's. I don't consider it good coaching when guys are willing a win after a coach leaves a bench in to blow a huge lead. LeBron played the whole 2nd half last night, which was a big move by Lue. Casey did nothing to stop the dunk/3 fest early in the 4th, which was run off of 1 offensive set. That was really shitty defense... Call a time out or something... Raps deserved to lose that game, but Byombo, DeRozen, and Lowry didn't allow it.
Lowry played 44 minutes last night, possibly 46 somethin ridiculous. I think he needed a breather going into that 4th Q and our bench is pretty damn good together. That being said, I've never thought Casey was a brilliant coach. He's really proving he can coach at a high level in these playoffs though. The rotations and adjustments he's made in each series have worked and you can't really disagree with them. I trust his defensive system too.
In games 1 and 2 and the 2nd half of game 4, the Cavs basically scored at will in the paint. (I didn't watch game 3 or the 1st half last night). The cavs blew some lay ups at the end of that game and byombo made some great plays in the paint. Again, that combined with some amazing play by Lowry and DeRozen saved that game. Casey made zero adjustments when the Raptors were getting destroyed, blowing that 18 point lead. You don't have a good defensive system if you can't stop a Delly+LeBron pick and roll. They got like 6 dunks off of back cuts. You need to call a time out and make adjustments. Like making sure Byombo is in the paint, not out on the 3 pt line guarding Frye.
Lol Gypsy. Golden State can really be summed up as Curry and Draymond shitting the bed. If Curry plays well, the whole team plays well. If not, then sometimes Green and Klay pick him up. If both him and Green suck. Then that's it. So far, Thunder have managed to flummox both. We'll see if they get it together.
As for the other series, Lue has cost Cleveland both games with his rotations. I don't know how people don't realize that if you surround LeBron with defense and a tiny sliver of shooting, your team is a 50 win caliber team. More lineups with LeBron, Frye, Delly, Shump, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but Richard Jefferson (guy looks younger now) please. Lue really needs to stagger playing Kyrie, Love, and LeBron at the same time.
Btw, next years most overpaid player has to be Biyombo right? I mean it's one thing to play like this during the playoffs when hustle and energy sometimes matter more than anything, buts it's kinda hard to muster this level for 82 games.
Agreed on the biyombo thing. But as for the lebron thing he played every minute of the second half the other night and even when those type of lineups were out, the raps had a reply. I think casey was slow to adjust to that lineup u mentioned, but when he did we were able to shut it down to an extent and score on it at will.
Biyombo helped himself a ton with playoffs. Barnes will be overpaid for sure....Don't count out Festus Ezeli either...Rumors of 3 years 51 mill from the lakers. That's crazy for a guy who plays 10 minutes a game.
ya ezeli and biyombo will be overpayed pretty huge. I'd much rather have steven adams and he gets payed like a scrub.
People talk about him being all star level talent if he wasn't eclipsed by the big 3 at GS. He seems to believe it too.
Holy shit this is a massacre.
Would you rather have LeBron, Kyrie, and Love or Russ, KD, and Ibaka?
I think Ibaka is less than whomever you'd peg him against a third dude. Picking between Russ/KD and Lebron/Kyrie is more difficult imo.
I'd rather KD/Russ/Ibaka - Thunder
I think KD/Russ/Ibaka. If it was Miami LeBron, probably who plus whoever.
Man, it's pretty close I think. And we are talking right now yeah? For just this year? I'd lean towards OKC here. I like Lebron and Ibaka is terrible (really he is god awful this year) but I think KD isn't that far off of Lebron (this year mind you) and Russell vs Kyrie is just embarrassing for Kyrie. There are clear trade-offs both ways which makes it interesting.
I think we might see who's better this year in the finals. Outside of those 6 players the Cavs and Thunder are pretty equal, wouldn't you say?
Probably. LeBron has historically owned OKC though. It just seems like their length and athleticism doesn't bother him whatsoever.
Steven Adams is much better than Perkins though, so maybe just having him defensively will be enough. Would be interesting to see how OKC defends Cleveland with 5 shooters. OKC isn't as sound defensively as say Toronto, but they make up for it with length and speed.
I think id take the cavs supporting cast honestly. The x factor again I think is frye, steven adams is a good defensive big but I think he'll have an even harder time keeping the cavs off the glass then biyombo and they cant really stop frye from getting open looks. I think the thunder are beating teams in the west with size and athleticism, but the cavs have size AND shooting. That being said westbrook is gonna completwly annihilate that defense and durant annihilates every defence. I think the thunder SHOULD take that series, but its really interesting, the cavs need to make shots and minimize offensive rebounds to stand a chance.
Maybe I'm crazy but I think Golden State still has a shot and I think they do win the series IF they can win in OKC.
Agreed.
I don't see OKC winning a game 7 at Oracle. I do think the Warriors need vintage Steph Curry performance though. Warriors feed off of him so much and they'll need that on the road. Still expect OKC to win.
Yeah they would need to play a lot better than they did in game 5 to win at OKC. Really excited for the game tonight, it's going to be intense.
Im scared it's going to happen. I really wanna see a Durant vs Lebron series again.
Raptors season summed up: We're the 5th best team in the league.
Also this: Canadian basketball in Toronto is goin nuts. Everywhere I go I see kids playin ball. It's pretty awesome. Fuck hockey lol
Oh come on, the cavs are better then the clips. No bench whatsoever on that team.
If I had to rank teams it'd be:
Warriors - OKC - Spurs - Cavs. HUGE GAP IN TALENT. Raps - Clippers - Heat - Hawks - Blazers - Celtics - Hornets. Another pretty significant gap. The rest lol
Trailblazers are getting close but they reaaaaaaally struggle on the defensive end.
Offseason is gonna be huge for the trailblazers tho.
Holy shit Klay Thompson was unstoppable tonight.
I just pulled this from the play-by-play, so it might not be super accurate, but I think in the last 4:30 Durant and Westbrook combined to go 0-4 with 6 turnovers.